Yangon - first impressions

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Arriving in the plane the city looked more like suburban Adelaide than a bustling city of five million, with a few street lamps and huge dark patches with no lights. Later I was to read the sign in my hotel that stated that power was often cut between 6am and 2pm, or from 6pm to 2am, or other hours.

The International airport here made the ones in Vientaine and Kathmandu look ultra-modern. It is easily the crappiest airport I've ever seen.

The first thing that hit me was that the cars are driving on the wrong side of the road. Sensible modern countries (such Australia, UK etc) drive on the left, while developing countries (USA, Canada, Bangladesh) have the steering wheel on the left and drive on the wrong side of the road. Burma, being pretty individualistic as a nation, has compromised by having the steering wheel on the correct (right) side and driving on the wrong (righthand) side of the road. It seems that the cars here are second hand cars from Japan, often imported in bits because Japan has a policy of destroying second hand cars. There are a few left hand drives here - knock-down Isuzus from the JV plant, a couple of battered Daewoos, and a couple of European cars left over from the sixties. Even the buses are RH drive.

Found a lodge for $10 and a Chinese meal with beer for $2 and tucked myself in under the aircon.

Today I've had a quick wonder around town, changing money and looking at painted faces. It's incredible - the people here all paint their faces with some sort of mud. I suppose it's sunscreen or has some useful properties, but it's kinda weird seeing girls, boys, women and some men walking around with white or yellow mud on their cheeks as if it's something they do every day. Even if they do.

Another thing that hit me was how modern the city looks. For one of the poorest countries in Asia, it has an impressive array of modern buildings. Something along the lines of Seoul ten years ago, but with character.

Tomorrow I head to Mandalay by plane. It costs about the same as the night train but is about 14 hours faster. There isn't a day train because it gets too hot for the locomotives. Damn it's hot here.

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Photos

Sule Paya
This 1700 year old pagoda in the centre of Yangon was built to house, you guessed it, a hair of Buddha. I dunno what part of him it came from, but probably not from his shaved head!

Street vendors
I thought I had found a girl with no makeup, but if you look closely, you can see it. Every woman here - and quite a few men - wears this ground wood on her face and many wear it on necks, ears, arms etc.

An actual city
I didn't expect Yangon to be anything much more than Vientaine. They even have some garish paint with which to recolour the British colonial buildings.

Local transport
There aren't many capital cities in the world where you will find a horse drawn buggy that isn't a tourist gimmick.

Comments

[anonymous]

Have just read through all your articles on Myanmar, we have just returned last month from a visit thre, you could almost be describing our trip and the photos are remarkably similar. I imagine not much has changed since you were there in 2006. Very few tourists to be seen anywhere. Loved it, also notice from your blogs that we have visited lots of the same places. Happy travels